I Don’t Care.

Bullshit. You do care. The fact that you’d even think that means that you care.

The problem with I don’t care is that it implies that you’ve given up. You’ve thrown your hands up, and you don’t want to do it anymore. Well why not? What caused you to throw them up in the first place? Was it something they said? Something they did? Were you pushed too hard? Too fast? Too long? Did you get to the point where you just realized that it would never go your way?

You see, I don’t believe you. At the end of this, you’ll have an opinion, one way or the other. Maybe you won’t show it. Maybe you’ll shrug your shoulders. But late at night, when you think no one’s watching, your mind will turn back to the moment where you could have done something about it. You could have made a different choice.

Creatives aren’t in the business of not caring. You don’t care means you’re just uninspired. Means you giving half of what you could. Means you’re giving McDonald’s, when the occasion’s calling for Morton’s. Writers, designers, story tellers, musicians. We’re not McDonald’s. We chose the life of baring our souls, for good or bad, and taking the beating that comes from it. We’re in the business of being naked in front of our mortal enemies, and asking them for understanding, patience, laughter. We’re asking for gentle kindness, and we’re expecting the stones. This is what we’ve chosen.

Of course you care. You’ve just been beaten down so hard for so long that you don’t have the nuts to stand up and pull the sword from the rocks. And the kicker- nobody’s going to help you. There are no easy days. No easy battles. There are no fields of green grass, only soldier-filled canyons, riddled with bullets and blood. You want to give up? Fine. Then move aside and let someone younger, dumber, and with a pair take your place. Because the moment you say “I don’t care” is the moment you’re done. And if that’s what you want- if you really look inside- then be my guest. But when you’re lying in your warm bed after the sun has gone, and your mind starts wondering about what you could have done, and what you would have done, and what you would have said- just remember that it was your choice. You pulled yourself out, put your clothes on, and unloaded your weapon.

I can’t change your mind. I can’t convince you. It’s up to you. Here’s your choice. Go be a lawyer. A doctor. A banker. Be whatever you want to be but get the hell out of my battle field. Or take off your jacket, pick up your pen, and fight.

It’s up to you.

It’s Not Business. It’s Personal.

Sometimes I’ll work on a piece of copy, or a scene, or a dialogue exchange, when I start to clam up. My mind will race about all the things that I’m saying, and in some cases, I’ll let the characters just speak my inner thoughts. I’ll give an ad a piece of personalization, or I’ll turn a scene into a slice of life that I wish would happen. Of course, things don’t go to print this way, but these moments do allow for that necessary piece of humanization that writing requires. And edit after edit and rewrite after rewrite, that scene will morph. That ad will change. That line will become a character driven or a brand driven piece of writing that works with the tonality, at least, that’s what’s supposed to happen. Writers have to work for a living, but when someone tells me that a graph or a scene or a line that I write is just business, I get angry, and then I realize- that person is not a writer.

The public at large has already heard everything, seen everything, and most will think that they already know everything. That is a problem, because we really can’t say anything new. We can’t tell them anything they haven’t already heard. That’s why there’s a slew of lines that say  ”The fastest whatchamacallit just got faster.” Everything’s a cliché, and so it comes to us writers to make it resound. And that’s where it gets personal. A paycheck is a paycheck, but a word is a piece of personality. It’s our take on what sounds good, what feels good. We as writers are required to take the known and put our spin on it. We’re required to add that little slice of humanization that can make the difference between what gets noticed and what gets lost. And it makes the difference between truth and lies.

IKEA is one of the largest brands today. Yet, what I remember most about it is a little commercial about a lamp.

It’s just a lamp. But we get caught up in it. The narrator’s right on, we do feel sorry for it. We hate it for the lamp, just as we love when Pixar’s iconic lamp finds another ball to play with. But some writer out there took his personal experience and made it into a great idea. Tell him it’s just business, and he’ll tell you about the time his favorite stuffed animal was put out in a cardboard box for the Goodwill van to pick up. Or about the time when his dog was left outside in the rain, and he felt guilty as hell watching the pup hang his head down low and get soaked.

Tell me writing’s not personal, and I’ll show you a play with no meaning. A script that loses it at page one. Or an ad that I don’t give a second’s worth of time to. It is personal. Writing is more than personal. It’s our inner core of beliefs, structured to sell an idea. It’s everything we are.

It’s always personal.

This sounds… (insert adjective here.)

Tone. Voice. How it sounds. Is it good? Bad? Business?

Believe it or not, people can usually tell who wrote something when they’re reading. Lawyers speak differently than Wall Street. New Yorkers speak differently from Southerners. Certain words are British, some are Scottish, some were just made up by mom… and that’s okay.

Every writer has a voice, and separately, every brand has a voice. Which really gets interesting when, say, you have a casual southern writer trying to write for, say, a multinational billion dollar company. Or, say, when it’s something as simple as a man trying to write to women. While it sounds ridiculous, it’s amazing how many men don’t have a clue how to write for women. Why, you ask? My opinion? They’re not paying attention. But that’s another story.

It’s a fine line, and it’s tricky. So, as a writer, how do you find the right voice for your girlfriend/ screenplay/ love note/ brand/ client/ essay/ email/ personal ad? Well, it’s actually fairly easy. Ready?

Read. Read everything you can possibly get your hands on. For clients, look at websites, brochures, old ads. For dialogue, look at the character, and character motivations. Copy buzz words, watch how sentences flow. Look for action words. If the article you’re reading has words like “flow”, you know it’s to a softer audience than an article that builds itself off the word “flex”. Why? Because of the images the words drop in your head. Where as ‘flow’ automatically sends your mind towards water, ‘flex’ sends you to Arnold Schwarzeneggar.

And then what? Just write, really. Put your headphones on, and go to town. But for gods sake, don’t just guess. Branding is manipulating, it’s matching. It’s matching the history of the business, and the people that work in it. You’re writing for the public, yes, but your first line of defense is the people on the other end of the phone (in 2000, I would have said conference table, but se la vie…). Make them happy. Make them feel good. Make them feel like you’re on their side, because while there will be comments, while there will be changes, if they feel like you’ve written something that sounds like them, they’ll fight for your work, even when you get off the phone.

So how does this relate to the screen and the script? I’ll get to that in another post.

Erbalach

Two days after Fred’s return, the faucet started leaking.

The brand new, $400 faucet. And now it’s got a damn leak. “Fine,” Fred thought. “I’ll fix the damned thing myself.” But Fred, being Fred, had never touched a faucet before in his life. Fred had no opposable thumbs. Fred was a dog.

His mother, a shitzu, his father, a Maltese. His other father, a Great Dane (Fred likened himself to the Dane, even perking his ears up high. He thought it made him look “regal”. And it did, to Fred’s defense.). Fred had just gotten back from vacation (boarding), and was starting to settle back into the swing of things (found his place on the sidewalk to poop), but that damned faucet had caught Fred’s attention. He had tried to tell his owner, but his owner made no notice. Fred’s ears were long and big and he could hear everything. Every drip was like a firecracker into his head. He pointed, he whined, but that just got him locked up in his cage. For hours, he sat and stared at the faucet, but he ended up being the only soul in a dark and empty kitchen. He was used to being alone, but not used to being ignored.

It was this that made Fred wonder why his owner had stopped paying attention. It was this that made Fred go to his owner, wag his tail, cock his head, and open his mouth.

“Hey boy,” his owner said. While the usual response would be the excited invite for Fred to join him on the couch, this time, all Fred got was a pat on the forehead, and a scratch under the chin. So Fred decided to get personal. He inched carefully to the couch, and when his master wasn’t looking, he jumped up.

Now Fred’s timetable was a little off, sure. After all, he had just gotten back to the city. And of course, he and his master hadn’t exchanged all the pleasantries yet of the new light of day pouring through the window, but Fred was almost positive that the day had begun hours ago. And so when he jumped, he wasn’t expecting his master’s coffee cup to be sitting on a notebook, and on top of this, because of shitzu heritage, he did not see, he could not see, he did not know, he was not expecting his master not to be wearing pants.

And once again, Fred was shoved, smacked on the butt, and locked in his cage. “Pfffff,” said Fred. Defeated, he turned himself around, once, twice, three times, and laid down in his bed.

Fred awoke to the sound of his master’s voice- “Erbalach! Erbalach! Erbalach!”

He pawed at his cage. Something was not right. A loud bang- “Erbalach! Erbalach!”

A crash. A howl. Fred pawed and pawed. He whined and whimpered until-”Noo-” And then silence.

Fred peered through the bars of his cage, lowering his head, cradled into the self-made pit of his pillow. A clunk. A whimper. Fred cocked his head, opened his eyes to see his owner’s hand, on the floor. His master pulled himself around the corner, and Fred could see there was blood following his body. The owner coughed- “Erbalach… erbalach.” He coughed again. “Erbalach… erbalach…”

His hand, over his chest. And Fred could see that his owner, his master, was choking. Fred pawed at the gate. He whined. He barked once, twice. Fred knew this was his chance. His owner needed the water. He needed to catch the faucet. To see it. To turn it on. He needed to see that the faucet was leaking. Fred needed to get him to that faucet.

He barked again. “Erbalach…” his owner panted, clutching at his chest. Clutching his neck and coughing. His fingers outstretched. His arm as far as it could go, until… finally, he unlatched the lock on Fred’s gate. The door flew open and Fred bounded out, up and over his master, out to save him. To rescue him. To show him the faucet was leaking, and he could help. He ran into the kitchen and slid across the hardwood floors, his butt finally catching up to his front paws. He raced over to the cabinets and-

Stared. Fred, of course, was a dog. A small one at that. “Erbalach…” his master croaked from the other room. His master would need water. His master would need to get up. His master would need a glass. Fred stretched his neck to peer over the counters, to see that cabinet that held the glasses, but yet, that cabinet was too high to reach. Four feet too high. And even if he could reach, he couldn’t carry the glass. He couldn’t do anything. Fred was helpless.

His master had stopped moving when Fred got to back to the other room. No more coughing. No more words. Nothing. Fred laid down next to him, nudging him with his wet nose. Pushing him with his small body. Nothing. No more Erbalach. Fred closed his eyes.

And from the other room, like fireworks into his head, came the sound. Drip. Drip. Drip.

The Art of the Concept: Boom Shakalaka

Most of the time, I sit at my desk with my headphones in. This is pretty standard with creatives these days. Maybe it comes from school, where we all had to wear them to actually get any work done. Sometimes it’s about listening to the music, sometimes it’s just about not being bothered. If you’re working, and you’re in the zone, and somebody picks that time to decide you’re not doing anything and come up and ask you a question, or talk to you about the news, or the weather, or just wanted to tell you that there was an email they got and it had to do with the russian mafia and there’s a five minute backstory before they actually tell you what the email said and all you can think is dear god this is the longest joke in the history of the world and there’s no possible way the punchline will EVER live up to the anticipation… well, it can totally ruin your concept.

The only other group I can think of that is as dedicated to their ipods is distance runners. Five miles, ten miles, fifteen miles, thirty miles, the music becomes the driving force. They time their feet to the beat, one after another. An uptempo song, they increase their time by thirty seconds, and then they puke from over training. As a writer, and a barefoot runner, I do the same. When the music’s jamming, I pound the keys. When it’s slow, I get deep in my head, take my time, slowly.

But no matter what, when there’s music going, I’m working. I’m moving. My brain starts moving. Ideas start coming. The world takes a back seat to what’s in my head. Time slows down, concrete walls build around me, the lights dim, and my eyes focus on the words on the screen. They move from left to right, up to down, one line after another. Where the word count turns from 50 to 329 and counting. All of a sudden, I’m writing. I’m creating.

I’m concepting.

I can’t promise it’s good, but at that point, I don’t care. All I care about is that I’ve filled the page, finished the work, and can come back to it later with fresh eyes, a fresh mind, and another tune.

The Art of a Concept: Time

The last post was about the procrastination. Maybe in reality, it’s a problem with simple time management. Forcing yourself to take the time to be creative. Yes, the life of a creative is knowing that random ideas pop at any given time, but the truth of the matter is that the concepts come when you put pen to paper.

Stephen Pressfield calls it Resistance in his “The War of Art” (a fantastic short read if anybody’s reading this). Resistance is a very real thing. It comes in the form of time wasting, of a more pressing matter, of a divorce, a girlfriend, an affair, a dirty couch, a dirty glass pane, porn, family, friends, email, really good sushi… the list goes on and on. This blog, for example, is a form of resistance. I spend time writing on this instead of spending time working on a script or an ad. But on the other hand, this could be looked at as an extension of my creativity.

I told myself when this blog was introduced that there would be no editing. Some days would be a long post. Some wouldn’t. This particular post for example was supposed to be about coming up with a concept. (Oh well.) Editing yourself, I thought, is really just Resistance getting through. A misspelled word, the wrong word capitalized. Grammatical errors. Whatever keeps me from hitting the publish button is Resistance. And Resistance is the one thing that can really kill a concept before its even begun.

So when it comes, what do you do? I really don’t know. Pressfield says you must push through. I agree, but on the other hand, I don’t exactly have my novel written, so my agreement seems to stop in theory. What do I think really helps?

There was a post on a health blog not long ago that talked about closing the valve when you’re fasting. It’s making the decision to not eat, and just letting that be it. Keeping it simple. I think for creativity, I’d go with the exact opposite. Eat. Eat like you’re never eaten before. And I’m not talking about food- although I had a spanish egg custard the other night that literally took me to another world- I’m talking about everything around you. Take it in, and take it in completely. And then push it all out. It’s the exhale after the big breath, stopping only when your lungs are empty. When it hurts. That’s when you take it back in again.

Writers write, and some write for 30 minutes, while others write for hours. Talk to any writer after he’s pushed out the big idea, and he’ll tell you its a mix of fear, excitement, and exhaustion. And its a beautiful thing. Resistance will come. I say let it. And then beat it back with everything you’ve got.

Stop Thinking. Now.

I’m trying to concept. By trying, what I really mean is I’ve checked three or four forums. I go onto adsoftheworld and look at what somebody else did. I look at old work. Get coffee. Look up more forums. I spent an hour looking up bike locks today (while I already own a bike lock), and then bike racks (yeah, got one of those too.) I’m assuming later I’ll go check out the cafeteria, even though I’m fasting. And then I’ll swing around my creative team and see what everyone is saying and doing. Maybe I’ll take a walk for some coffee. And at some point, yes at some point, I’ll sit down to write.

For about a week now, my writing has been off. Am I concerned? Not really. It’s writer’s block. You get it when you have time for it. That’s what I’ve noticed. The well dries up right when you don’t need water. When you’re thirsty, you find a way. Maybe it’s just digging that much deeper that gets you there. But when I sit down to write- when I turn off everything else, and stop worrying about the things around me, the ideas come. And that’s how it works. But man, it really takes a bit for that to happen. To turn off the distractions. You just really have to stop trying.

But how exactly do you stop trying? You stop thinking. Thinking is what gets in the way. It’s what gets the creative in trouble.

Don Draper explains advertising like this: You think about something really hard, and then you forget it. The best ideas always are the ones that are right in front of your face. The ones that when you hear, you think, “Why didn’t I think of that?” To quote Crazy Heart, “The best songs sound like you’ve heard them before.”

So when it’s time to create, I say stop thinking. maybe stop using capital letters, after all, this is what worked for ee cummings. at the very least, I can use punctuation. you have to start somewhere, right? maybe this is getting difficult to read, what with my ranting, and the lack of capital letters, but this is what letting go is. Letting go is not really about trying to write, it’s just writing. Its not caring what you do. Its not caring what comes out. it’s about going with the flow of thought. turning off your inner editor. just letting stuff flow out and end up on the screen/ page and then going back and looking at what you got. this is where the ideas come. this is where you find the ideas you’re proud of. This is where the meat is.

And when you get there, when you taste it, when you know you’ve hit gold, it’s a beautiful thing. Love it while you can, because now the real work begins.

The Writer’s World

Last night I had a crappy night. At least, until about 8pm. At 8pm, something happened.

Two Johnnie Walkers and chicken fajitas down, sucking a Dewar’s and soda out of a plastic straw, I went back to my childhood with the cheesy ass rock musical Rock of Ages on Broadway. Okay, on 47th street. It was actually funny. It was extremely funny. It was a complete farce, and the cast knew it. There was nothing serious about the play except for the guitar licks, the drum solos, and the screeching. The bass was so loud you couldn’t actually hear the dialogue, you couldn’t hear 90% of the lyrics, but you felt every Def Leppard, Whitesnake, and Journey hit that you remembered. And for the first time of the night, my wife and I smiled together and laughed together. It was glorious.

And not five minutes after the curtain call, we were in a cab on the way home, when some douche bag in a Mazda 3 pulled up beside us, almost sideswiped us, rolled down the window and yelled to our driver, “F-CK YOU, N—-R”. At which point our driver sped up, cut him off, and yelled, “YOU WANT TO F-CK WITH ME, I’ll F-CK YOU UP!” as he was whipping around the roundabout at Columbus Circle. Five minutes after that, I left the cab and said “Thanks”, and the driver said “Thank you, sir. Have a good night.”

Okay. So that was the night. Before the show, I was having a real egotistical battle about my creative self, and that of course brings about all sorts of insecurities. If you’re a writer,  there’s usually a large amount of self hatred trapped under the skin. I mean real battles. Real scary shit brewing under the surface, stuff that wars are made out of. Even more so than designers or artists or actors. All of those careers and artists have an outside audience. They have a visual outlet. They have a performance and response analysis that takes place immediately. Writers… not so much.

Not many people pay attention to the writers. Could it be because everybody thinks they can write? Maybe. Could it be that people are so used to papers, pamphlets, and ads making sense that it seems ridiculous to think that it actually took some work? Probably. Could it be that people don’t see writers as real artists? Interesting.

Tell that to Hemingway. Tell that to O’Keefe. Tell that to Alex Bogusky. Tell that to Luke Sullivan. Tell that to anyone who’s sat inside of a writer’s room in Hollywood. Tell that to the people hyped up on so much coffee that they can’t sleep, all because they’re looking for a way to end their book/ screenplay/ story/ poem. Writers aren’t intrinsically noticed like actors, designers. We don’t get a lot of credit, not until the media picks up something. Did anyone know Aaron Sorkin before The West Wing? Or Alan Ball before American Beauty? What about Woody Allen when he was a standup comedian?

And in this city. This city has so many stories to tell. Every room, every window. That’s why I live here. Because there’s a funny musical that you can go to at the end of a bad day. Because there’s a cab driver who tells drivers to fuck off, only then to be a complete gentleman. Because everywhere you look in Manhattan, there’s history. There’s an event. There’s something to tell about.

I’m a writer in New York. I get lost in the crowds. I get lost on the web. And you don’t notice the work I do, because I’m good at it. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Scaffolding Has An Imagination

It’s completely true.

All I’m saying is that when you walk under scaffolding, you think about the scaffolding. And it’s not just a “it’s dark”, or “I have to squeeze in”, or “there are people there and I like sunlight” sort of thing. No, it’s real. And it gets pretty damn inventive.

It starts with wondering what the construction is for. Why is it there in the first place? Then to wanting to see it. What’s wrong with the building? What’s happening that you need scaffolding? Why not just put up a ladder? Then to wanting to climb the scaffolding for closer inspection. Because every time scaffolding goes up, you know it’s not a minor fix. You know the building’s getting ready to fall down. And besides that, scaffolding begs to be climbed. Here in New York, there’s scaffolding every other block. And I can’t walk underneath it without wondering the story is.

Even yesterday, when I walked underneath at 50th St, I was met by about 6 cops telling me not to go under it. I had to cross the street. Why? What happened? Did something fall? Was the scaffolding dangerous? Was there a murder? Could my alter superhero-ego help? What if I was a photographer and was there to document the scene? (And for the record, I have no idea what happened, but it had nothing to do with me.)

The building across from my apartment has scaffolding, and every time I see it, I think about what could possibly happen. When did it get there? You never see scaffolding being put it, you just see it up. How did those guys get the support ropes up there? Did they jump? Did they rappel down? Did anybody fall? Was there somebody there to catch them? What about Superman? Did Superman catch him? And was he old? Young? Kids? No kids? Family? Or was it Spiderman, who climbed up the wall to save him and then ended up slinging web across the sky to catch him mid-fall? Sure in actuality, they most likely took the elevator up to the roof, and through down long pieces of rope, tied it to the scaffolding and that’s it. But in my head, it’s a whole different world.

It’s a part of New York. It’s a part of being in a busy place with a creative mind. But my, oh my, the stories that those metal poles and wood planks hold. And they’re all in my head.

Starting Up a New Blog. Again.

I can’t tell you the amounts of blogs I’ve had. Things that have been “the inner thoughts”, posts about movie reviews, development deals, more movie reviews.  I had an online book once. I’ve even had script reviews. Script reviews. At what point did I actually have enough readers in order to have script reviews?

Okay, maybe enough readers isn’t the point, but it’s gotta be part of the point, right? Sure, we write for ourselves, and sure, we write because of… well, I couldn’t think of anything else to do, honestly, but what’s this blogging stuff really for? I mean, what do we really want out of it?

Fame.

Oh let’s be honest. No one ever starts a blog and says “Wow, I hope nobody reads it.” No no, we want a community. We want followers. We want to be asked advice and sought out and seen in crowds and people will come up to us and tell us things like “Oh, I loved what you said about blah blah”, and “you were so right on about blah blah”. So naturally when I start up a new blog, I ask myself, what will draw in the crowds? What  will make me wanted at parties? What will turn people on?

I don’t know. I don’t have a clue. But I know what it’s like to be around. I have a pretty solid idea what it’s like to be a writer in New York. The ups. The downs. The “you should write a book about that” comment. Well, buddy, I’m not going to write a book about that. As a matter of fact, it may just be a mention online. It may just be that I end up soliloquying about it all over this blog. Or maybe not. I mean, I wouldn’t get your hopes up, but I eventually need to talk about something to make me famous.

Celebrity-ism is waiting. And I don’t have the energy to make a sex tape.